Carnival of Rust
by cardinalcampeius
Summary: You've been having trouble sleeping lately. (A story about Laughing Jack and the reader.)
1. Chapter 1

You've been having trouble sleeping lately.

It's not really a big deal. Everyone gets insomnia from time to time (yours involves staying up until three in the morning watching movies on your laptop, staring at the pulsing colors in the dead of night), it's normal, it's fine. Considering how hard you've been working at your babysitting job for some extra cash, you think you should be sleeping the moment your head hits the pillow, but instead you stare at the ceiling of your room and wait. And wait. Your thoughts travel and twist and turn and you will yourself to shut your eyes and drift off and you can't. People start to notice and start prescribing all sorts of remedies to you, melatonin tabs and honey, not eating before bed, shutting off the phone and computer. You try it all. By the time you do get some sleep every night, the battle you've fought with yourself has come to a weary ceasefire to begin again the next night.

You're tired and you're frustrated and you're short with the kid in the overalls who's bored and you have homework the next day. This always seems to happen on nights you babysit. Tonight you're leading a kid up rickety steps to his bedroom. His parents wanted him in by 8 p.m. on the dot and it's 8:32. He wanted to watch cartoons and you let him. Less stress for you. So what? It's just a half hour.

You've almost closed the door behind you when a small voice comes from inside. You peek in, a blade of light cutting through the room, revealing a patch of blue blanket and small face. "Yeah? Do you want me to get you some water," you ask, and he shakes his head. "There's a monster in my room," he says, fear in his eyes. You sigh a little and pull up a chair that's a little too small for you. "Can you please stay an' keep watch?"

"You're a big boy. There's no such thing as monsters."

"Yes there is! There's one in my room that peeks at me when I'm not looking. I swear!"

He won't budge. His parents are coming home at ten. All you have to do is stay there until he falls asleep. Your stomach rumbles. Reluctantly, you slide down to the floor next to the doorway, leaning back against the wall. "Okay, fine, I'll stay. I'll keep watch if any big scary monster comes around and tries to gobble you up." He smiles at you and gives you a thumbs up, then turns over. Just looking at him makes you tired. Last night was a particularly bad night and you've been dragging yourself along all day, from school now to babysitting. If only you could just get some shut eye. If only...

...you must have fallen asleep. The room comes into view from a fuzzy blend of darkness. You rub your eyes; it couldn't have been for more than a few minutes, but it must have been an hour or more. The hallway light is off and as you squint through the darkness you think you see the kid's sleeping form under the covers. His parents must have come home and found you sleeping and felt sorry for you. Let you rest. As you stagger to your feet, stretching the kinks out of your arms and legs, you try to remember the dream you had while sleeping. Since your insomnia you barely ever dream. It rarely even feels like you've slept at all. Creeping down the hallway and stairs to grab your bag on the kitchen table down below, you seem to remember being at a carnival.

The living room and kitchen are dark, too. No sign of his parents. Must have already gone to bed. They probably left your pay by your bag. You feel your way across the wood floor, around furniture, and manage to ram your foot right into a table leg. You stagger in pain and swear under your breath and manage to paw around for the light switch as you slip on something wet.

The light flicks on and almost blinds you and your eyes take a few moments to adjust, black smears appearing in your vision. Your bag is thankfully where you left it.

When your eyes adjust to the light a shadow passes through the doorway to the kitchen and, poised to head out the door, you stop yourself. Your parents are going to be expecting you; your home is just around the corner and is only a few minutes' walk and your dozing off just reminded you how tired you were. But you stop yourself. Staring through the doorway, you can't shake the feeling something is horribly wrong.

The kitchen tiles aren't red, they're white.

Something crashes and for a second, just a second, your hand grips the knob of the front door, ready to run, ready to call for help, it must be a burglar or thief or murderer that broke in. Footsteps like boots crunching broken glass from behind you. The room revolves around you as you spin to face the noise and get an eyeful of...

something.

Something smiling.

You open the door and you run. Your sneakers pound the sidewalk; the bag jangles almost musically; you run until your legs want to fall off and as your house approaches you try to block out what you've just seen. By the time you open the front door with shaking hands, creep to your room silently as to not wake the rest of the house, and press your face to the pillow you've forgotten what the thing looked like entirely. Just a black smear in your memory. You think to call the police but as you pick up the house phone and try to dial 911 you realize you wouldn't be able to speak even if you wanted to. Wouldn't be able to tell them. Maybe it was all just a dream and you were freaking out over nothing. Maybe you were just seeing things because you were so tired. If you called the police now, for them only to discover everything was fine, you'd probably get in trouble and be the laughing stock of your school. It's best to just leave it alone.

Somehow, curled up in blankets in the darkness of your room that seemed to get more suffocating by the minute, you drift off into sleep. The easiest sleep you've had in weeks. When you sleep, you dream.

You're searching for someone through a maze of carnival stalls and broken down rides. Greying walls, sagging buildings, footworn paths. Searching through aisles of games with prizes your eyes can't focus on. You call their name. "Come on, quit playing around, it's getting dark and we need to go home!" You were never scared of fairs as a kid but somehow this one is starting to give you the creeps. Laughter from somewhere ahead leads you on. "Mom's going to be so mad," you mutter to yourself, before stopping in your tracks and blinking.

How did you get here?

But something distracts you from your thoughts. Up head is a massive circus tent, black and white stripes as if you're in an old movie. He must be in there. You slip between the giant folds of the entrance to find it's pitch black inside. You call, "this isn't funny anymore!" Voice echoing off the walls, your plea is returned with silence.

As you lean against one of the stands and rub your eyes, suddenly dizzy, a beam of light cuts down to reveal a lone figure, waving. Relief flows over you and you jog over to him. He keeps waving. He keeps smiling. After catching your breath, you speak. "Geez, I thought you'd been lost for good. Come on, let's -"

Where his head should be is an empty space.

You wake up mid-scream. Something presses against your mouth and wraps around your head, muffling your voice. The room is pitch dark besides the moonlight filtering in through the window and as you look up through the slits of enormous fingers you catch the face of a clown in black and white.

"Ssshhh."

The clown's black lips part in a smile. High, playful voice. You know you have to be dreaming.

"Come now, let's not wake up your old man and his bride, hmmm? That would be disastrous for you."

"Mmm-" Paralyzed, your heart racing, your hands fly up to grip the immense one with your nails. The clown simply grins.

"No time to play tonight, no, no. No games." It bends down. Boots. Memories of the other house fly back to you. "Games are for later and then we'll play all we want. First I'll have to introduce myself.

My name, my little fly, is Laughing Jack."


	2. Chapter 2

Laughing Jack?

Something in you finally breaks like a dam and your hands fly up to claw at the thing holding you down and there's a sigh of impatience; you scramble to the opposite wall, panting. It's obvious you're only free because he let you go but you entertain the thought you're stronger than this unearthly thing. This is really only a dream, anyway, and in dreams you can do anything, right? "You- you- I saw you," you spit out, "at the house- you were there!" The revelation adds more weight to your words. "Wow, I must be way more tired than I thought," you sigh, laughing nervously. "Having recurring nightmares and seeing the same creepy thing in all my dreams?" The clown is sitting, blocking the door, staring at you, or at least you can feel his eyes on you, it's too dark to know for sure. Defiantly you start pinching yourself. "I'm probably still asleep r-right now and am just having a very real dream." There's a snort of mocking laughter from the other end of the room and your stomach drops.

Your arm hurts. "Are you done," he asks lazily, head propped on a massive hand, "boring me to death? Hm? Little whining thing." He fakes a giant yawn, stretches. You take to rubbing your eyes, but the reality is seeping in fast, one you don't want to face. "Here's something a little more interesting: we've met before."

"Wh- what?! What's that supposed to mean?!"

"Oh. Don't tell me you don't remember our first little chat? My heart's being /broken/, [Name]." Pitiful, mocking edge to his voice that makes you want to puke. Since your eyes have adjusted to the dark you can tell he's pouting. His face pulls and twists more than a normal human's, and even his frown is exaggerated. You stay silent, trying not to show fear. Maybe he can smell it on you (although that would be hard with the cone nose.)

"Cat got your tongue? I really don't have all night. Well, you don't," he chimes. "Wait...don't tell me. You're /scared./"

"No," you say with some confidence. Clowns never scared you as a kid and they won't scare you now. "I just don't appreciate s-seeing one in my bedroom." You play along despite the hammering in your chest. "D- W- What do you want with me?"

"Getting right down to business? You're no fun at all," he sighed, disappointed. "If I had known you would be so boring I would've just killed you like I planned to. But since you're so eager—"

"Killed me?!"

"Are you going to parrot back every word I say?"

"N...No."

"Good. I need you for a game I'm playing. I've been /ever/ so bored, lately, and I have a bone to pick with an old friend. An old rival."

"What makes you think I'll play along?" All of this is too strange. You're still pinching yourself but at this point you have to face the facts: this is no dream.

"Because if you /don't.../" and he's closer to you now in the blink of eye, just a couple feet, and in the moonlight his features are disgusting and contorted, a sick interpretation of a clown. Rows and rows of long, thin teeth. It reminds you of a shirt you've seen a friend wear to look cool, but you don't say that. Wouldn't want to offend the giant monster sitting very close to you with enormous claws and teeth.

"...you'll kill me?" You finish for him, although you're really hoping that wasn't what he was going to say.

"Yes! I'll torture you until you beg for mercy and then I'll kill you, which would be very fun for me. Your parents would find your body all over this tidy little room and lose their minds. What a smart little meat bag you are. Does puppy want a treat?" He grins and reaches out as if to ruffle your hair but you quickly slide down to a sitting position. He pouts.

You have two options: do as Laughing Jack says or be killed by him. Doing what he says could also get you killed or worse.

You don't really have any options.

"If I do this for you, you'll leave me alone afterward, right?" The hope in your voice is cautious. He laughs that terrible laugh.

"Maybe.. maybe not. Isn't that the fun of it? Where's your sense of humor?"

There is a long silence that follows. Swallowing, you nod your head.

"Goody, goody. Here's what you do..."

The pines seem to reach into the sky, casting shadows longer than thought possible. The sun touches the horizon. You exhale shakily and untie and retie your laces, stalling on the edge of the woods. As the wind rustles the leaves you go over again Laughing Jack's instructions.  
>He hadn't stuck around long after, but he said he'd be watching you closely. To see if you follow through. You slept harder that night than you'd slept in months for some reason for another and when you woke up you wanted to believe it was all just a very very real dream.<br>But it wasn't.  
>If it was, you wouldn't be standing here, waiting to encounter his "old friend." Or was it "old rival?" You wouldn't have snuck out of the house on a Tuesday with the cover up of seeing a friend.<br>He delighted in seeing you refuse, over and over.  
>"I'm not going to give myself up to— to whatever it is," you had spat in terror, shaking your head.<br>"Scared?" His face had contorted into a terrible grin, propping his elbow on your bed, head tilted as curiously. "Oh, what's the worst that could happen? Where's your sense of /adventure/?"  
>Somehow he had gotten you to say yes. There was no more time to stall. Taking the worn footpath, you tied your jacket around your waist (it was a warm night, warmer than you'd thought) and marched stiffly as the color of the sky deepened. You didn't particularly know what you were searching for. Or who. He'd just told you what to do (go to the woods, wait) and forced you to do it. Whatever was going to happen you aren't so sure now it would be better than getting killed.<br>Scared? Of course you were scared. Tears well up in your eyes you wipe away angrily and after ten minutes of walking you stop to rest by the trunk of the tree. Maybe, just maybe, nothing would happen by the time the sun came up and you'd be free and you'd never see him again. It might just be the stress, but for the last few minutes you've had a pounding headache. You wish you'd brought something to do, at least, to pass the time. No idea what would make you more or less noticeable.  
>Just what are you waiting for?<br>The headache is getting worse. The force of it is like nails being driven into your skull and spots bloom in your vision — you think you're going to pass out — and out the corner of your eye you see one of the trees has disappeared. You don't think much of it. Could've been just a trick of the slowly dimming light. Maybe you've been hallucinating all this time? Maybe Laughing Jack is just a part of your sleep-deprived imagination. Ten more minutes pass by and, humiliated, you stand and stretch and prepare for the walk home.  
>Something forces you into the hard earth. Your body seems to vibrate with it and you barely have enough control over your limbs to roll onto your back, gasping for air as your eyesight flickers...<br>...and you see him. It. Staring down at you from what seems like miles up, impossibly long, impossibly crooked and grotesque limbs trailing down for years and years. But you couldn't take your eyes off of its face, or what should have been a face. It stood and as it stood reality seemed to shimmer around it in a pulse, the same pulse rocketting through your brain. It was doing something to you. It was.. it was /doing/ something to you. You scream and shut your eyes, rolling over to protect yourself from whatever this monster was, and in your minds eye you get flashes of images, sensations, most of all anger. It was forcing its thoughts on you.  
>"Get out," you scream, "get out get out get OUT!"<br>And you scream and you scream and you scream.  
>And then it's over.<br>Quick as it came, it left, leaving a deafening silence. Several minutes pass before you take your hands away from your face, blinking up at the sky (more time must have passed than you thought, because the moon was high in the sky) blearily. What.. what happened? You rise to your feet. The world spins and your head throbs. You lean your hands on your knees, gasping, feeling hollowed out and shaken.  
>"That wasn't exactly dinner theater."<br>You look up and he's there, staring down at you, hands tucked behind his back thoughtfully with a sort of disappointed frown on his face. You want to grab a rock and throw it but your arms feel like gelatin.  
>"It didn't even touch you."<br>"It DID something to me," you bark, "it- it MESSED with me!"  
>"Well, not what I had in mind. You're supposed to be..." He made a vague gesture, pulling his face into a more thoughtful look, gaze rolling away. "...dead. Eviscerated. Organs hanging like Christmas ornaments from the trees. That sort of thing. Bait." And suddenly he looks at you with double the curiosity. "What exactly DID it do to-"<br>"You sent me here as BAIT?!" Your voice is hoarse from screaming.  
>Laughing Jack's puzzled grin shoved downward into an impatient frown ("Humans.") and he steps toward you and you prepare to get your body sliced in half with those claws, but it never does. When you open your eyes his hand is raised has if to strike (to punish) but it's a frozen picture in time. Face carved into an ugly, hateful sneer, that twitches slightly.<br>"..What? Aren't you going to finish me off?"  
>He stays silent, his expression darkening by the second.<br>You stare at each other. The seconds tick by.  
>And he backs away. Quick as a flash, the sneer is replaced by a grimace.<br>"Excuse me," he says testily, glaring down at you,  
>"but what exactly are you?"<p> 


	3. Chapter 3

"Wh—" You stare at him in confusion, knees wobbling. "What do you mean 'what am I?'"

"Oh, I'm sorry," he hisses. His boots crunch dead twigs and leaves as he paces around you, slowly, and you stare at the ground to try and get your bearings. Whatever it did to you is making you want to puke. Really bad. "If you were any old regular boring - flimsy -" with each step his words were punctuated and he raised his arm again to strike (you could hear the whistle of the wind against his arm) and still nothing touched you, "- breakable little human you would be scattered on the ground in a pile of bone and blood. Which is what SHOULD have happened."  
>His claws dig into your scalp and neck, his hand almost big enough to encircle your head, yanking your hair up to look you in the eyes. He's grinning. Rows and rows of wild teeth. "And here you stand." There's a pause. No mirth in that smile. By now his form is mostly a dark silhouette. And then it seems to come to him: "Ohhh. I see." Your feet leave the ground and searing pain shoots down from your scalp. Tears well in your eyes.<p>

"Let me GO! I did what you asked, so let me GO!" You struggle helplessly, flailing your legs pathetically, but to no avail. He laughs and it feels like a snake curling in your stomach.

"It thinks it can play its games with me."

"What are you TALKING about? Let me g—"

"Hush, now."

You hit the ground with a hard thud and immediately back away until your back touches the trunk of a tree. Finger pointed, breathless, tears running down your cheeks. "I don't want any part of this! If you can't touch me, I can walk away and you'll never be able to come near me again. I don't know what you are, but you aren't going to use me like a puppet for whatever sick idea you're going to have next!"

"Are you done?"

"YES!" With a stomp you turn your back and begin speedwalking back the way you came, terrified and alone. Out of the corner of your eye you can see he's following you.

"I said to leave me alone," you say hoarsely.

"You think I'm going to listen to something like you? Oh, that's a laugh!" And he does.

"I'm going to ignore you."

"You can't ignore me forever, [Name]. This will certainly be interesting. It must have plans for you to render you untouchable. I can't wait to see."  
>But there's something in his voice, something in how he's watching you like a hungry dog that tells you that's not all of it.<br>You keep walking. He keeps following. At some point, you no longer hear his footsteps but you can feel him like a presence, oppressive and mirthful.  
>In an hour you're back home, cold and tired, and you drag yourself to your bed. You sleep again this night, and you dream of the carnival, the same desaturated twisted caricature of what a carnival should be. You close your eyes and pinch yourself. Laughing Jack won't get to you. Whatever he's planning, whatever kind of sick motive he has, you won't be part of it.<br>Before you wake to the calls of your parent, you catch these words:

"...The mansion..."

Days pass. Sometimes, out the corner of your eyes, you can see him grinning, and your friends or your relatives ask why you look so pale. Like you've seen a ghost. You laugh it off and keep joking, keep living, like an anarchy against the reality of your situation. Which is this:  
>There is a horrible laughing monster stalking you that won't leave no matter how hard you try to ignore him. No matter how much he jokes about turning your friends and family into piles of organs to string up and decorate whatever room you're in nicely. Compliment the furniture. Or when he just won't shut up.<br>While he's dangerous and annoying, you have the upper hand, and that's clear; whatever his friend did to you, it made you untouchable. Invincible against whatever Laughing Jack had planned for you. It's unclear whether he's simply choosing to stick around or that he can't leave.  
>But when he thinks you're not looking (or when you think he thinks) you can catch him frowning. Sneering. Watching you as you talk to friends or read or whatever like he's going to rip you apart from the inside to find out what makes him unable to do that.<br>One night you're sleepless again and staring up at the ceiling; it's been a long day and you haven't seen any of You-Know-Who all day which makes you especially nervous, him having the habit of appearing unexpected to scare you and then cackling about it, when you hear the creak of floorboards. You refuse to open your eyes. "Go away," you tell the empty room, like scolding a kid. Expecting to hear a snide retort or a snort of laughter and getting nothing, you swallow your sudden nervousness and turn over in your bed.  
>The carnival presents itself to you again, same as ever. You've been forming your own theories about this place. This must be where he goes when he's not with you. Some sort of alternate dimension. Your mind reels with the possibilties, but your patience is wearing thin. "You can't SCARE ME," you shout toward the decaying stalls and prizes and dilapidated rides. An echo calls back to you. "You can't scare me no matter how hard you try. I'm not some toy you can play with and drag around when you're bored!"<p>

"Yes, you are." The dream ripples with laughter.

The air leaves your lungs as your body contacts cold ground. Laughing Jack steps over you daintily, looking down over his shoulder with a grin, tossing a piece of candy toward you. "Where did you bring me," you groan, getting your bearings. The candy is a lollipop, the same red ones in any convenience store.

"Here's a little something to pacify you. Don't cry too hard." It looks like he's waiting for you to taste it.  
>It's probably poisoned.<br>But if he can't hurt you...

You rip off the cellophane wrapper and shove the candy in your mouth defiantly. "Cherry." Maybe you're being a little too cocky with the whole invincibility thing.

"You don't like it?" He starts pouting, kicking the dirt with his boot.

"I love it, LJ. Where are we?" Your voice drips with sarcasm.

"You're NICKNAMING me!"

It's only then you notice the rays of sun through the trees and a clearing. In the clearing, stands a large mansion or house, sagging and clearly old and empty. It seems the woods around the both of you made just enough space for it and a small stone walkway. You get the feeling that yesterday this building wouldn't have been here.  
>You've seen weirder things in the last four days.<br>LJ starts moving. You follow behind him. The lollipop is making you thirsty.

"Have any soda where you keep these things?"

"Aren't you a greedy little pig."

Closer up, details like faded window shutters and cracked, sagging steps make themselves clear. The two double doors are dark varnished wood. At some point, the mansion would have been beautiful. LJ stops, folds his hands behind him.

"I dragged you here because you can't be anywhere I'm not," he hissed. Blunt and to the point.

"Or is it the other way around," you reply snidely, and march past him to push open the doors.

The both of you disappear inside the hulking mass of wood and metal and glass without a trace.


	4. Chapter 4

The room you enter is a parlor, or some sort of greeting room. There are wide hallways branching off deeper into the mansion but the room itself is rather bare; sparse couches and seats, a side table, a lamp. None of it looks dusty or like it had been aging at all. Like any human had touched it for centuries.

You turn back to say something about this and find, instead, an empty space where LJ had been. So he leads you to this place and then dumps you and leaves. That would contradict what he was saying earlier, but he doesn't seem the type to not lie about something. Or maybe he hasn't left and he's just hiding. Whatever the case, you're alone in a big empty mansion.

There's always the option of just leaving.

You turn on your heel and try the doors. Locked. Of course they're locked. Unease settles on you like heavy stones slowly pressing in on your flesh. You can't see too far down any one hallway. "LJ?" you call, hiding the apprehension in your voice. No answer. The tones of your voice don't even carry for very far: although the room is large and spacious, no echo comes back to you.

Standing there in silence, the thought occurs to you you could just wait until he comes back. If what he said is true, he'll have to come back to you at some point.

The thought inexplicably excites you. It gives you a small boost of confidence to take a random hall and start walking down it. It's as expected: picture frames and small furniture, closed varnished wood doors leading who knows where. What's not normal is that all the pictures are marred and warped and you keep thinking you've walked through this corridor already, or passed the same arrangement of frame-end table-door. And the mansion seems to... know you're there.

Not in any way you can explain to yourself. But wandering the halls in silence gives the questions settled in the back of your mind a chance to be in the spotlight. How is this all possible? How long have those two existed? Why? Are there any more like them?

What happened to the kid you babysat?

What happened to his parents?

Why are you only able to sleep when LJ is around?

You never saw anything on the news, which you watched religiously the next few days for any inkling of what happened that night. Nothing in the paper. No investigation. When you walked back to the house it wasn't boarded up. There wasn't any crime scene tape. The doorbell rang and rang and rang. You were too scared to go back inside. One night, when you thought you caught someone mentioning a murder on the news, your parent quickly shut the TV off, motions jerky and strange, and asked you to go to bed. At seven at night. You thought for a moment you could see their teeth bared.

Questioning LJ got you nothing. He'd answer in riddles or purposefully misinterpret your questions ("Why were you there? Did you kill them? Whose blood was that I saw?") or just not answer at all, humming a tune in his throat and turning away.

Maybe following the voices you've been hearing the last few minutes would lead you to answers.

Multiple ones. They're discussing something, or maybe arguing, and if you really concentrate you can hear LJ's. His sounds the angriest. The staircase is taller than previously thought and you stare up towards it, grabbing the smooth railing with a hand. The mansion is cold and it's getting colder.

Behind you, a hard thud shakes the floor and you shriek in surprise. You spin around to face the noise and a few feet away lays a figure in what looks like a hoodie. They were following you, that much is clear. Did they trip? Looking closer, you can see they're twitching violently. Who IS this freak? You're too scared to go any more near it than you already are and instead you grip the banister of the stairs and swallow hard. "Are you one of them?"

No reply. Something's seeping from under the figure's head. Something black. Ink? A shudder runs through you.

"What kind of freak are you," you blurt, getting angry. Is it planning some sort of surprise attack? You're impervious. "You can't hurt me, if that's what you're planning!" You're acting like some kid, shaking in your boots when you're just fine around the (admittedly scarier) monster Laughing Jack.

"What, are you hurt, or something?" Real concern starts blooming in you when there's still no reply. Had it been following you since you arrived at the woods?

...Was it trying to save you?

That's ridiculous.

Tentacles burst from its back all at once and you stumble backwards on the stairs, shrieking again, as they reach and latch onto the banister where your hand was just a moment ago. Deftly they drag the body along as they crawl and reach like spider's legs rapidly and, for a moment before the body is lifted past you, you catch a glimpse of two black pits and something blue.

It was staring at you.

Your knees knock together.

Can't be a chicken now. Need answers.

You wait until you can't hear the slick squish and skid and slide of tentacles on varnished wood until you begin your ascent. Up above, you hear the slam of the door, and a few moments later the voices cease.

The mansion, besides the creaking of the steps, is silent.

You try to calm your breathing and take slow, deliberate steps up toward the second floor, hoping that the chatter would start again. The silence is worse than the voices. Emptiness. Anticipation.

And, thank God, it does; eventually the conversation starts again, sounding a little more heated, and once you leave the staircase you can tell which door it's coming from. One down this hallway on the right, indescernable from any other, and you take cautious steps toward it. The voices distinguish themselves. You hover next to the door, listening, catching the tail end of a sentence first.

"...ridiculous," you hear LJ hiss.

Another voice chimes in, confident and strange: "Weren't you asking for it? Thinking it wouldn't be onto your tricks? That's a very foolish thing to-"

Sounds of a struggle and a thud. A third voice interrupts the struggle. This one is rasping, hoarse, and most of all angry. "Ha! Don't have a fucking hissy fit, LJ. EJ's not the one who got you stuck with her!"

You hear LJ grumble something but can't tell what. A fourth voice commands its presence in the room. It's terrible, stripped of anything that could make it human, layered and reminds you of kings and royalty. It sends a shiver down your spine. "There(there) is something(thing) more pressing at hand. The Master is furious with Laughing Jack for failing to do as told."

The third voice chokes out a sputtering snicker.

Failing to do as told? He has a superior?

LJ growls something to the third voice, who grumbles something back. The regal voice continues. "The Master reminds you who is in charge and who is to do what is required of them." You get down on your knees and try to look through the keyhole, but all you see is black. Weird. "Its tasks are of the utmost importance and, if failed, require punishment."

"If Zalgo's so damn powerful and all focused on its stupid 'tasks,' then how come it can't do it itself," the third voice rasps.

The regal voice carries a tone of impatience. "You know, Jeffrey, that while the Master is all-reaching and terrible, its scope of influence is..."

"Let me offer a word: stunted." LJ.

"...is limited." Regal voice is untouched by the sarcasm being laid on by LJ. So he's not just like this with you because you're a lowly human. "It needs its holy servants, like I, to carry on its will."

"Does it ever occur to you we got SHIT to do outside of this mansion? Huh? You're acting like I don't have the fucking Slenderman up in my skull telling me to kill peop-"

"Excuse me." Jeff (you assume the raspy voice is Jeffrey) keeps ranting but the second voice interrupts him.

"What is it NOW, EJ?"

"She's still here." The keyhole clears away and you catch a flash of black and blue. You realize what you've been looking at this whole time.

That face.

Before you can react, the door swings open, and you see a procession of monsters. There's LJ, back against a wall-to-wall display of bookshelves, too tall to stand, legs crossed, who's looking straight at you with a sneer. A boy, or a man, also looking dead at you, tangled charred-black hair and wide, bloodshot eyes. Vicious scarring on his face that makes your stomach turn. The creature from earlier is standing next to you politely, hand still on the knob.

But the centerpiece of this is the creature at the opposite wall, illuminated from behind with daylight, a massive warped thing that could have at some point been a human being, but now its limbs and chest are warped and distended and broken. You choke back a scream. The silence is horrifying until the creature in the blue mask speaks up.

"I thought you'd like to be part of the discussion, madam."

"Madam?" LJ sneers. "Don't flatter her."

"A woman should be given the respect she deser-"

"So YOU'RE the one he got his ass stuck with? What kind of shit is Slendy trying to pull?" Jeffrey grins and it's awful. You can't look at him.

"Your human shouldn't be here," the monster in the back says calmly.

"My human?" LJ parrots back. "Hardly. If it were my choice she'd be dead."

"Thanks," you blurt, summoning your confidence. If LJ can't touch you, the rest of these goons can't, but you'd still rather be around the one you know the most. You stride into the room and sit next to him, cross-legged and steel-faced. You can't read the look on his face but it looks like a combination of surprise and confusion.

The thing in the back speaks up. "I would request the human be removed by force, but seeing as how it is necessary for Laughing Jack to attend this conference -" Jeffrey shoots a snide grin -"it will be acceptable."

There was a pause. The warped face, lined with eyes and teeth, looked almost contemplative. "The Master is telling be there is a purpose for everything."

It turns all of its eyes on you. A chill runs through you. You feel as if a first domino has fallen somewhere secret. "The Master tells me there is a reason for your involvement."


	5. Chapter 5

i will no longer be updating this fanfic. if you need reasons, here it is:

snuffbomb, the creator of LJ, is a pedophile sex offender and a transphobic asshole.

do your own research. thanks for reading


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